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Starting a project – 1. The Research Bit

Written by clfield
19/01/2009

Hello Blog People

In this blog I’ll describe the initial phase of a project. So many of my students “don’t know where to start”, so I thought I’d use my own studies for the C & G Embroidery course (Distant Stitch, www.distantstitch.co.uk ), and take you through….. I use this method for ALL my artworks, whether designing a bedroom, a wedding dress, a hat, a bag or creating a painting…

1. Research, research, research….

Look at what other people have done before you. No work of art is totally original. We are all influenced by the world around us.

For my course, we were given a starting point of either crosses or stars. If you are studying art &/or textiles, you will probably be given a brief… My students have just completed “The Sea”, “Cubism/Music” and “Renaissance Portraits”… If you are working totally free of all restraints, and just can’t get started, look out of the window!

I have used images from a variety of sources, including wrapping paper, wallpaper, NASA, glassworks and fabric pattern.
From these images, I began to create some of my own. I have used watercolour paint, wet on wet… using tons of water… I have also decided to use the colours Lime and Violet (I will be creating a blog on using the colour wheel a bit later). Lime and violet are complementary colours.

In part 2, we’ll go on to developing the ideas using positive and negative space, different textures and distortion.
I’ll leave you with Monty! Cate